War Damage: Four Poets of the First World War

Abstract

At the British Library, the term ‘war damage’ is used to describe holdings that were lost or destroyed as a result of bombing raids during the Second World War. In this article, my aim is to consider this term both literally and metaphorically: what are the implications of such damage for our understanding of literary works which themselves engage with the theme of the damage inflicted by war? My examples are chosen from the large body of literature to have emerged from the experience of the FirstWorld War, and thus the historical process charted here involves the impact of one war upon literary works produced in the context of an earlier one. It is not the least of history’s ironies that these works were written, in most instances, with the intention of alerting readers to the horror of war and the damage it entails. Four poets of the First World War –Guillaume Apollinaire, Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas and David Bomberg –mark different points within a range of complex reactions to the conflict. Their work also has something to say about special collections in libraries and archives, if indirectly or laterally. With the exception of David Bomberg, whose reputation as a visual artist far outweighs his reputation as a poet, each of the above writers has been frequently reprinted and anthologized. It is fair to say that the framing of those republications has positioned Owen as almost exclusively a war poet, while Apollinaire is viewed as a poet who also wrote war poetry. Thomas is different again, generally being seen as having written work that bears on the war but almost always in a very specific sense, which is to say obliquely. Perhaps only one of his poems addresses the war directly, and the shock of its public tone within Thomas’ œuvre confirms its status as an exception to the rule. The poem in question opens: